Women – Page 10

Widespread sexual harassment still persists in Delhi: study

March 29, 2016 by Nasheman

Washington/New Delhi: Sexual harassment remains a pervasive problem in Delhi despite tougher laws being enacted after the gruesome Nirbhaya rape and murder case in 2012, according to a new study that found 40 per cent of female respondents were sexually harassed in the past year.

About 40 per cent of women surveyed in Delhi said they have been sexually harassed in a public place such as a bus or park in the past year, with most of the crimes occurring in the daytime, researchers said.

Further, 33 per cent of women have stopped going out in public and 17 per cent have quit their jobs rather than face harassment in public places.

“What this means is that women, despite Nirbhaya, are still afraid,” said Mahesh Nalla, from the Michigan State University in US.

Nirbhaya became the pseudonym given to the gang rape victim whose death in 2012 brought worldwide attention to violence against women.

“Women in India do not feel safe being in public spaces, which is clearly a human rights issue,” Nalla said.

While sexual harassment is a problem experienced by women worldwide, it may be more prevalent in emerging democracies such as India and other countries in South Asia where women are becoming more involved in the workforce, said Nalla.

“The problem is intensified by the existence of a cramped, inadequate public transportation system, massive youth migration to urban areas and the fact that India is a traditional patriarchal society where many still believe a woman’s place is in the home,” he said.

Nalla and Manish Madan, assistant professor at Stockton University, surveyed about 1,400 men and women in the capital city of New Delhi on a host of issues including perceptions and history of sexual harassment, use of public transportation, safety in public spaces and police effectiveness in dealing with these concerns.

Researchers found that 40 per cent of female respondents were sexually harassed in the past year and 58 per cent were sexually harassed at least once during their lifetime.

Respondents were asked to gauge the seriousness of sexual incidents ranging from whistling to asking a woman for sexual favours to patting her buttocks or squeezing her breasts.

While both men and women generally considered all incidents serious, men considered them considerably less serious, illustrating “a disjunction between how males and females think,” Nalla said.

Sexual harassment of women in public spaces in India and elsewhere in South Asia – known as “Eve teasing” – has long been a common occurrence, particularly by groups of young male perpetrators, he said.

The December 16, 2012 rape and murder of Nirbhaya by a group of men on a moving bus in Delhi brought about new laws for rape and criminalised voyeurism and stalking.

However, despite these efforts, sexual harassment continues on a broad scale, the study suggests.

The research was published in the journal International Criminal Justice Review.

(Agencies)

FLO Bangalore organizes discussion on women’s mental health

March 22, 2016 by Nasheman

Bengaluru: FLO Bangalore is focusing on managing Mental Health this March. With the members of the FICCI Ladies Organisation being largely entrepreneurs and senior professionals – a focus on mental health and its management was essential. In a first ever synergy, the traditional and the modern techniques would come together.

Master Akshar from the Akshar Power Yoga Academy and Dr. Sabina Rao, join to address the women of Bangalore of a holistic strategy to manage the challenges of a modern life.

While modern technology should make our life easier, but the challenges have really made our life more stress full.

Mental Health has been under increasing focus internationally and at home in India. Deepika Padukone became the first ever actress in recent memory to speak out about depression and having gone through the same in her life. Drawing from her own experiences, the actress has now opened her own NGO that will focus on spreading awareness about mental health and provide help to those suffering from depression and other forms of mental illness.

“Mental Health should not be considered a stigma. Neither should a person seeking mental help assistance be considered insane or mad,” says Rati Dhandhania Mundrey, Chairperson FLO Bangalore. “Mental Health is a challenge that needs to be taken as seriously as any other physical ailment. FLO members are senior professionals and entrepreneurs and lead busy and stressful lives. It is hoped that this synergy of the traditional and the modern would be able to help the women of today, deal with an increasingly demanding and complex world.”

Why women are more at risk than men in earthquake-ravaged Nepal

May 2, 2015 by Nasheman

by Shelly Walia & Akshat Rathi, Quartz

Natural disasters are thought to be indiscriminate killers—but is that strictly true?

It turns out disasters affect women much more than men. A 2007 study by researchers at the London School of Economics and the University of Essex found that between 1981 and 2002, natural disasters in 141 countries killed significantly more women than men, and that the worse the disaster, the bigger the gender disparity.

The latest figures from Nepal show that among the 1.3 million affected by the earthquake, about 53% are female—a small but not yet statistically significant bias.

That might soon change. According to the Women Resilience Index, a metric developed to assess a country’s capacity to reduce risk in disaster and recovery for women, Nepal scores a paltry 45.2 out of 100. Japan scores 80.6, by comparison, and Pakistan 27.8.

And lessons from previous disasters show that the bias affecting women can worsen in post-disaster relief.

Is biology destiny?

There are many factors that contribute to this bias—both social and biological.

For instance, the excess female deaths during both the 2001 Gujarat and the 1993 Maharashtra earthquakes, which killed 20,000 and 10,000 people respectively, were blamed on the fact that more women were indoors while men were in open areas.

In 2004, when the third-largest earthquake in recorded history triggered a tsunami in the Indian Ocean, up to four women died for every man in hard-hit Aceh, Indonesia. One factor: women in Indonesia do not usually learn how to swim or climb trees.

During and after the 1998 floods in Bangladesh, many women suffered from urinary tract infections, due to the lack of sanitation and the taboo attached to menstruation.

“Common cultural practices dictate that women’s needs for privacy tend to be higher, so relieving themselves in public is harder than it is for men. Menstruating women face additional difficulties when access to water is lost or limited,” a spokesperson from the international aid agency Oxfam told Quartz.

After the calamity

The discrimination doesn’t stop after the immediate search and rescue is over. Sushma Iyengar, a social educator who works in Gujarat, told Quartz that during the 2001 disaster, “there was a much higher percentage of orthopaedic injury—and a lot of people got spinally impaired. And among those who became paraplegic, a huge number were young women, because they happened to be inside their houses.”

The paraplegic young women then became more vulnerable to the risks of their husbands leaving them if they were alive. “Not immediately after the calamity, but as the reality unfolded, and families come to know that the woman is not going to bear children, and that she is spinally impaired, and dependent, and she will not be earning, so she was abandoned,” Iyengar said. “It’s too early to figure out the extent of injuries, but what happened in Kutch [site of the Gujarat earthquake] might unfold in Nepal, too.”

Women are typically more vulnerable than men, especially in patriarchal societies, due to issues of personal safety and violence and access to scarce resources. Therefore, when a calamity strikes, the situation is accentuated.

“In calamities, you’ll see the best of humankind for the first few days. And then slowly, as the struggle looms large that you’re going to be without shelter and livelihood, that’s when a lot of conflicts occur,” Iyengar said. “At such times, women are vulnerable to different forms of trafficking and exploitation.”

A report by the UK department of international development refers to this as “double disaster,” where indirect or secondary impacts make life worse for women. But some efforts are being made to address the disparity.

Flipping the situation

In Nepal, the plight of thousands of pregnant women is being given particular attention. The UN Population Fund, for example, is distributing hygiene and reproductive health kits.

Such efforts have in the past been shown to have a two-fold benefit. Not only are the lives of women improved, but many of them then get involved in relief activities. Local women, for instance, are the most effective at mobilising their communities.

For instance, an Indian non-governmental organisation, Swayam Shikshan Prayog (Hindi for “learning from one’s own experiences”), which had been focused on helping women in disasters for 15 years, helped spearhead a programme to help rebuild homes after earthquakes in Maharashtra and Gujarat.

So those working on relief efforts in Nepal would do well to pay a little more attention to the needs of women. The rewards would be well worth it.

Nandigram: Perfect example of disempowering empowered Women

March 18, 2015 by Nasheman

by Nisha Biswas

Nandigram, a rural area with two community development blocks in Haldia subdivision of Purba Medinipur, is not known as such but is the name of historic resistance – struggle and the win of its people against the forcible acquisition of 10,000 acre land by the West Bengal government for proposed Chemical hub between 2007 to 2010. Since then Nandigram is inspiration for many agrarian and anti- land acquisition struggles. It was mainly due to Nandigram that the then UPA government was compelled to change SEZ and Land Acquisition Acts. The movement took the steam out of the more than three decades CPI(M) rule and TMC won the state assembly election in 2011 with unprecedented majority.

Women of Nandigram played a key role in its resistance movement. They were in the forefront. Supriya Jana lost her precious life in indiscriminate firing by police. As many as 17 women were raped, many were molested and around a hundred were injured. Women like, twice gang raped Radha Rani Ari, Tapasi Das whose thigh was almost sawed and had uterus hit when police opened fire on unarmed women and children and who still lives in perpetual pain, Swarnmoyee Das whole left elbow was so badly injured that it still remains badly injured, elderly Narmda Shee became the face of the Nandigram movement.

Their courage, energy and never dying attitude inspired many. It was the time to dream, time to hope, time to empower, time to live and time to die. They went all over the country to tell their tales. The then opposition party chief Ms Mamata Banerjee supported them and shrewdly snatched the credit. People of Nandigram in general and women in particular thought that she would bring the change that they had dared to dream. Riding on the waves of Singur and Nandigram movements she snatched power from CPI(M) and became Chief Minister of West Bengal on May 20, 2011.

A seven-member team of Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, West Bengal (WSS, WB) visited Nandigram 4days ahead of observation of “Martyr’s Day”, observed on 14th March of each year to commemorate the historic struggle of Nandigram against land acquisition, this year.

What the team saw was terrible saddening and disturbing. That these women who were once the powerful leaders are today not only distressed but are also disempowered.

Now, they are nowhere in the leadership of Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), formed at the time of struggle. They are not even invited for BUPC meetings or on March 14 to observe Martyr’s Day. The leadership of BUPC did not know what happened to the cases that they filed against police and ruling party goons. On the other hand, in December 2013 CBI has instituted case against more than 30 men and women, including women who were severely injured/ raped for inciting violence and attacking the police and the CBI’s request for permission to initiate criminal proceeding against some police officials is still lying with the state government. The women, who not only suffered rape, bullet wounds and state terror but had remained in the fore front of the heroic struggle against forcible land acquisition, and were subsequently instrumental in unseating Left Front from power, have today been completely edged out of the political space.

Women like Tapasi Das and Swarnmoyee, who needed prolonged treatment and support for the disability caused by bullet injuries were left to fend for them selves. None of the women was awarded or given any job in recognition of their contribution to the movement. In rare cases men of the family are given some temporary job with Metro Rail, but women were just forgotten. Tapasi Das, who lives in continuous pain and is bed ridden for most of the time, is not provided any medical or emotional support. Local MP gives her Rs 1500.00 per month, out of which the courier pockets a hundred rupees, is not sufficient for her travelling to doctor’s chamber. Her family finances do not permit to consult a specialist.

A grand hospital built in the memory of martyrs and to take care of medical needs of the locality, is a picture of grim dereliction and waste. Main gates remained locked and the watchman’s assertion of doctor visiting once or twice a month remains questionable.

Radha Rani Ari, who travelled all over the country with Ms. Banerjee to narrate the barbaric sexual atrocities inflicted on her, recalls how in the run-up of assembly election she was much sought after by the present ruling party. Now that the TMC party of Ms Banerjee is firmly in power, she has been carelessly abandoned. She says “My body was like a property that would get votes” and that now very often she contemplates suicide. Angur Das, who was raped along with her two daughters, one married with two kids and the other unmarried at that time, is today a grim picture of neglect. She remembers the promise that marrying her daughter was party’s responsibility. Her all the three sons work in UP in a carpet factory. Elder daughter Kabita was not allowed to return to her marital home after this incident. Younger daughter Ganga’s well – being hangs on the thin thread of payment/nonpayment of hefty dowry agreed. Only three out of sixteen raped have received compensation of Rs 2.00 lakh.

Brute force of male domination has silenced women. All the rape accused, like Badal Garu, Kalia Garu, Rabin Das, etc., have retuned to their homes after spending years of exile to escape public wrath. Rumor is their rehabilitation has taken place after negotiation with BUPC (male) leadership. Garu clan lives in radha Rani’s area and is next-door neighbors of Angur Das. It makes women further insecure and adds to the reasons of their depression. These men are devoid of any remorse, and with the support of BUPC to whose leadership they had paid hefty fine, causes fear in these women. On confrontation, BUPC leaders tell them, “What is your problem?” They are not ready to understand that their problem is not only justice is not done; they are being humiliated every day. Even neighbours are now pointing fingers at the rape survivors.

Being the battleground that changed the political scenario of West Bengal and have caused major policy changes, Nandigram remains the very picture of neglect. Roads are the same picture of rejection, agriculture still remains single crop, ponds are not renovated and canals are yet to be dug, causing men-folk to migrate in search of work. Even MNREGA work is erratic.

Nandigram today is a sad picture of rejection. Women, who were the integral part of the movement and were at the forefront of the anti-acquistion stir that eventually catapulted the Trinamool Congress into power in West Bengal are now confined to their homes and are subjected to all kind of oppression.

Nisha Biswas is an activist based in Kolkata.

80% of Anti-Muslim attacks in France against women, says report

February 20, 2015 by Nasheman

Kenza Drider, a French Muslim of North African descent, wears a niqab outside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris April 11, 2011. GONZALO FUENTES/REUTERS

by Lucy Draper, Newsweek

80% of the anti-Muslim acts which occur in France are carried out against women a new report published today by Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, has revealed.

The commissioner, who produced the report after visiting France in September last year, warned of increasing attacks directed at homosexuals, Jews and Muslims and said that there should be more efforts to integrate and care for immigrants and asylum seekers.

Muižnieks recommends a national plan to promote and protect human rights as well as ratifying Protocol No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights on the general prohibition of discrimination in order to “further strengthen the legal framework.”

Attacks on Muslims have been on the rise in France since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January. Earlier this month the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) published data that showed that between the Charlie Hebdo attacks on 7th January and the end of that month there were 147 ‘acts’ carried out against Muslims.

In the week following the attacks the CFCM reported that 26 separate mosques had been attacked across the country. In some cases the buildings were firebombed and in other grenades were thrown.

Fiyaz Mughal, the director of UK-based interfaith thinktank Faith Matters says that the term ‘acts’ covers a huge range of hostile actions. He says they have received complaints from Muslim women which include: “Spitting, general abuse, pulling and tearing at the niqab and the hijab, plus dog faeces being thrown at women, as well as bottles from passing cars and people shouting things like ‘Muslim whore’ ‘Muslim bitch’ or ‘Muzzie’.”

On why he believes Muslim women might face more abuse than their male counterparts, Mughal says: “All our data… shows that visible women are the ones that are targeted at a street level. This means that women who wear the hijab are the ones that are sometimes targeted for abuse and those who wear the niqab suffer more anti-Muslim hate incidents and more aggressive assaults.”

He also believes that there is a gender imbalance in terms of anti-Muslim hate at a street level, saying that victim data shows that perpetrators are usually male and aged between 15-35, while their victims are mostly women and aged between 15-45.

Sahar Aziz, a professor who teaches about Middle East law at the Texas A&M University School of Law wrote an article for American news site CNN in which she condemned the lack of response to these increased attacks from French feminists who had celebrated the 2011 ban on full face veils. “As Muslim women face threats to their safety in the anti-Muslim backlash, one cannot help but notice the deafening silence of French feminists,” Aziz writes.

Muižnieks’s report addresses a wide-range of problems in France including racism and discrimination against a variety of people including Roma, migrants and those with disabilities.

Although the commissioner commended France for combating the issues he raised in their courts and institutions, he went on to suggest that the country “include the fight against discrimination in a national plan to promote and protect human rights”.

“It is essential to put an end to such acts, including on the internet, and to punish those responsible,” he wrote.

Bengal woman tied naked to tree, beaten; opposition slams Mamata

January 27, 2015 by Nasheman

Kolkata: A woman in West Bengal Monday alleged that she was tied naked to a tree, beaten and branded over allegations of stealing. A couple were arrested but got bail which prompted the opposition to accuse the Mamata Banerjee government of “patronising criminals”.

Police Monday arrested a man and his wife for the incident that occurred Sunday in Kultoli in Baruipur subdivision of South 24 Parganas district. However, both the accused were granted bail by a court.

“I was accused of stealing and a gang lead by Sanjib Maiti tied me naked to a tree and beat me with sticks. They also branded me with hot metal,” said the woman who later filed a police complaint.

Baruipur sub-divisional police officer Deepak Sarkar said Maiti and his wife were arrested, but granted bail by a court.

While the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) alleged the involvement of Trinamool Congress activists, the Congress and the BJP slammed the state administration over the accused getting bail.

“After tying her naked to a tree, they subjected her to indescribable atrocities. She was subjected to this brutality only just because she is a CPI-M supporter. Trinamool goons have been attacking our people for long. We demand the arrests of all the perpetrators,” former minister and CPI-M leader Kanti Ganguly said after visiting the woman.

However, Trinamool’s Kultoli block president Gopal Majhi denied the allegations.

“The entire thing has been staged by the CPI-M and their leader (Ganguly) is trying to frame us and malign the Trinamool,” he said.

Actress-turned-politician Rupa Ganguly, who recently joined Bharatiya Janata Party, slammed Chief Minister Banerjee for the rise in crimes against women in the state.

“When the chief minister herself described rape as a ‘petty matter’, then such crimes are bound to happen. It’s a shame that a state headed by a woman CM has been hitting the headlines for crime against woman,” said the actress, who gained cult popularity for playing Draupadi in the television series “Mahabharat”.

Former state Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya too attacked the administration for pressing lighter charges against the two accused.

“Not a single day passes when attacks on women are not taking place. Instead of taking strict action, the administration is actually encouraging criminals by either not taking any action or by pressing lighter charges,” said Bhattacharya.

The incident comes days after a woman in Birbhum district was tortured and nettle leaves rubbed into her private parts allegedly by a police team to extract information about her nephew – a local Bharatiya Janata Party leader wanted for his alleged involvement in a political clash.

A National Commission for Women team, headed by chairperson Lalitha Kumaramangalam, Saturday recorded the Birbhum woman’s statement and assured of taking action in the matter.

(IANS)

India’s bride markets grow, while trafficking convictions decline

January 6, 2015 by Nasheman

The shortage of brides in some states with skewed sex ratio has made human trafficking a lucrative trade.

by Devyani Shetty, IndiaSpend.com

The Indian penchant for aborting or killing female children appears to have created a clear market for trafficked brides, a new report has said.

The market is divided into supply states and buyer states, said the report published by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The eastern states of Assam, Odisha and West Bengal continue to be supply states, as they always were, while buyer states include Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The key reason for bride trafficking is, as economist Amartya Sen once put it, “missing women”, the Indian phenomenon of preferring boys to girls. He estimated that more than 100 million women were “missing”.

The skewed sex ratio in a few major Indian states has given rise to intense demand for brides from organised trafficking agencies. People in these states say there aren’t enough women in their caste/community, and therefore they buy brides from poorer states.

Let us now look at states with the lowest sex ratios (number of females per 1,000 males):

The UN report said “organised bride trafficking rings” are increasingly operating in Haryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. “The concept of “marriageable age” is significant in states like Punjab and Haryana, as decades of unchecked sex- selective abortions have led to a significant shortage of marriageable-age women.

This shortage has given rise to human trafficking as a lucrative trade, which has expanded not only to organised trafficking rackets but also to local villagers acting as brokers.

A study (involving more than 10,000 households) on the impact of declining sex ratios on the pattern of marriages in Haryana revealed that more than 9,000 married women were bought from other states. The study also revealed that most people now accepted the concept of purchasing a bride but denied having bought a bride themselves.

According to Empower People, a New Delhi-based organisation which focuses on issues pertaining to women trafficking, low sex ratios are spurring the kidnap of young, unmarried women.

This table highlights, by state, the number of women kidnapped:

These states are also the “supply states”, from where women are trafficked for marriage, says the UN report. Most of the women and girls are trafficked from poor families. They are either lured by fake matrimonial dreams or lucrative jobs in booming Indian cities.

“These ‘matrimonial transactions’ are often projected as voluntary,” the report said. “However, the ‘purchased brides’ are often exploited, denied basic rights, substituted as maids or are often resold and abandoned after a few years of matrimony.”

Government’s responses

An inter-ministerial group has been constituted to consider and recommend proposals to amend the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956.

An anti-trafficking cell has been created by the Ministry of Home Affairs to strengthen enforcement. The ministry set up 225 anti-human trafficking units across India (as of August 2012), which led to an increase in registration of cases and stronger prosecution.

The government of India has strengthened the application and enforcement of the Emigration Act, 1983, to regulate recruiting agencies (agencies making fraudulent job offers overseas, fake recruitments for non-existing employers or for foreign employers who never authorised the agents, thus rendering the workers without jobs.)

Despite these actions, the reality appears unchanged.

These tables show the registered trafficking cases and convictions in such cases in the supply states:

The conviction rate in India for trafficking cases was 44% in 2009, but dropped to 17% in 2013. This is alarming. In a big state like West Bengal, the conviction rate was 5.6% in 2009, declining to 2.5% in 2013. These dipping numbers highlight the gap between government policies and implementation.

This post originally appeared on IndiaSpend.com, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

Modi government scraps rape crisis centres project

January 2, 2015 by Nasheman

WCD minister Maneka Gandhi had assured that the centres would be open by December. Photo: Hindustan Times

New Delhi: The much talked about “one stop crisis centre” — conceived in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case and the Justice Verma report — has been scrapped by the NDA government. The project worth about Rs 200 crore was expected to provide medical, legal, police and emergency services to women in distress.

In June this year, the women and child development (WCD) ministry, headed by Maneka Gandhi had announced that one-stop rape crisis centres will be made functional by the year end in all districts of the country.

The centres were supposed to provide medical, legal, and police aid to women who are victims of rape and sexual assault.”These will provide short stay for the women in need and will be equipped with ambulance services which will reach women who need help. Funds, Maneka added, have been allocated for the project, partly from the Nirbhaya fund and the centres will be run by the central government,” The Indian Express had earlier reported.

According to TOI, “the plan has been shot down by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the argument that the scheme was unnecessary and services could be provided through the existing infrastructure like hospitals and women police stations.”

“WCD ministry sources however pointed out that there were many scenarios when women who were stalked, molested, raped or experienced violence and could not or were not willing to go to a police station. “They require only shelter or counseling. The centre promises anonymity to the victim. It would have acted as an overnight shelter while making all the services of a hospital, police station, legal aid cell under one roof,’’ sources said. The cost of a centre was pitched at Rs 36 lakh,” the paper reports.

Saudi Arabia sends women drivers to 'terrorism' court

December 26, 2014 by Nasheman

Saudi activist Manal Al Sharif, who now lives in Dubai, drives her car in the Gulf Emirate city on October 22, 2013, as she campaigns in solidarity with Saudi women preparing to take to the wheel on October 26, defying the Saudi authorities, fight for women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia. AFP / Marwan Naamani

by Al-Akhbar

Two women’s rights campaigners detained in Saudi Arabia for driving have been transferred to a special tribunal for “terrorism,” activists said on Thursday after the women appeared in court.

The ruling came at a hearing in al-Ahsa, in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, according to the activists who declined to be named.

Loujain Hathloul has been detained since December 1 after she tried to drive into the kingdom from neighboring United Arab Emirates in defiance of a ban. Maysaa Al-Amoudi, a UAE-based Saudi journalist, arrived at the border to support Hathloul and was also arrested.

US-ally Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which does not allow women to drive.

Activists say women’s driving is not actually against the law, and the ban is linked to tradition and custom ultra-conservative Wahhabi nation, and not backed by Islamic text or judicial ruling.

Some leading members of the kingdom’s powerful Wahhabi clergy have argued against women being allowed to drive, which they say could lead to them mingling with unrelated men, thereby breaching strict gender segregation rules.

Last November the oil-rich kingdom’s top cleric, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh, said the female driving prohibition protects society from “evil” and should not be a major concern.

“They will transfer her case to the terrorism court,” said an activist familiar with Hathloul’s case, adding that her lawyer plans to appeal.

A second activist confirmed that Amoudi’s case was also being moved to the specialist tribunal.

Human Rights Watch have urged the Saudi authorities to abolish The Specialized Criminal Court, Saudi Arabia’s scandalous “terrorism tribunal,” to which the women’s cases were referred.

The court is the same body that convicted prominent cleric and pro-rights advocate Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and sentenced him to death alongside four other pro-democracy advocates for criticizing the kingdom’s unfair doings and calling for greater rights for Saudi minorities.

HRW said that analysis of trials of a number of human rights workers, peaceful dissidents, activists and critics of the Saudi regime revealed “serious due process concerns” such as “broadly framed charges,” “denial of access to lawyers,” and “quick dismissal of allegations of torture without investigation.”

Activists did not provide full details of the allegations against Hathloul and Amoudi but said investigations appeared to also focus on the women’s social media activities.

Saudi Arabia, which is on media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) group’s “Enemies of the Internet” list, has been particularly aggressive in policing the Internet, including by arresting those who post critical articles or comments.

Hathloul, who has 228,000 followers on Twitter, tweeted before her arrest, sometimes with humor, details of the 24 hours she spent waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia after border officers stopped her.

Amoudi has 131,000 followers and has also hosted a program on YouTube discussing the driving ban.

Some 41 percent of internet users in the oil-rich kingdom use Twitter, a study published by the US-based Business Insider website found.

The micro-blogging site has stirred broad debate on subjects ranging from religion to politics in a country where such public discussion had been considered at best unseemly and sometimes illegal.

Scores of Saudis have been arrested over the years for posting content critical of the Wahhabi regime on Twitter and other social media outlets.

In February, RSF said that Gulf monarchies, in a yet another crackdown on dissent, have stepped up efforts to monitor and control the media, particularly online.

In early December, Saudi authorities blocked the website of a regional human rights group which reported the two women’s arrest.

Moreover, Saudi women have taken to social media in protest of the ban on female driving.

In October, dozens posted images online of themselves behind the wheel as part of an online campaign supporting the right to drive.

They also circulated an online petition asking the Saudi government to “lift the ban on women driving” in a move that attracted more than 2,400 signatures ahead of the campaign’s culmination on October 26.

In response, the Ministry of Interior said it would “strictly implement” measures against anyone undermining “the social cohesion.”

Late October, the UN Human Rights Council urged Saudi Arabia to crack down on discrimination against women among other rights abuses.

The council had already adopted a report listing 225 recommendations for improvements a couple of days earlier in Geneva during a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Western-backed kingdom’s rights record.

Many of the UN recommendations called on Riyadh to abolish a system requiring women to seek permission from male relatives to work, marry or leave the country, and one urged it to lift the driving ban.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Women with disabilities locked away and abused

December 8, 2014 by Nasheman

End Forced Institutionalization, Sexual and Physical Violence, Involuntary Treatment

A resident sits on the floor in the women’s ward of Thane Mental Hospital, a 1,857-bed facility in the suburbs of Mumbai. © 2013 Shantha Rau Barriga/Human Rights Watch

by HRW

New Delhi: Women and girls with disabilities in India are forced into mental hospitals and institutions, where they face unsanitary conditions, risk physical and sexual violence, and experience involuntary treatment, including electroshock therapy. As one woman put it, they are “treated worse than animals.”

In a new report released today, Human Rights Watch found that women forcibly admitted to government institutions and mental hospitals suffer grave abuses and called for the government to take prompt steps to shift from forced institutional care to voluntary community-based services and support for people with disabilities.

“Women and girls with disabilities are dumped in institutions by their family members or police in part because the government is failing to provide appropriate support and servaices,” said Kriti Sharma, researcher at Human Rights Watch. “And once they’re locked up, their lives are often rife with isolation, fear, and abuse, with no hope of escape.”

The Indian government should immediately order inspections and regular monitoring of all residential facilities – private and government-run – for women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities, Human Rights Watch said. India should also take steps to ensure people with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities can make decisions about their lives and receive treatment on the basis of informed consent.

The 106-page report, “‘Treated Worse than Animals’: Abuses against Women and Girls with Psychosocial or Intellectual Disabilities in Institutions in India,” documents involuntary admission and arbitrary detention in mental hospitals and residential care institutions across India, where women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities experience overcrowding and lack of hygiene, inadequate access to general healthcare, forced treatment – including electroconvulsive therapy – as well as physical, verbal, and sexual violence. In one case, a woman with both intellectual and psychosocial disabilities was sexually assaulted by a male staff member in a mental hospital in Kolkata. The report also examines the multiple barriers that prevent women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities from reporting abuses and accessing justice.

The Indian government should pursue urgent legal reforms, including amending two bills currently before parliament, to address these abuses and protect the rights of women and girls with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities, Human Rights Watch said.

The report analyzes the situation of women and girls with disabilities in six cities across India. Research was conducted from December 2012 through November 2014 in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Mysore, and is based on more than 200 interviews with women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities, their families, caretakers, mental health professionals, service providers, government officials, and the police. Human Rights Watch visited 24 mental hospitals or general hospitals with psychiatric beds, rehabilitation centers, and residential care facilities.

There are no clear official government records or estimates of the prevalence of psychosocial or intellectual disabilities in India. The 2011 census estimates that only 2.21 percent of the Indian population has a disability – including 1.5 million people (0.1 percent of the population) with intellectual disabilities and a mere 722,826 people (0.05 percent of the population) with psychosocial disabilities (such as schizophrenia or bipolar condition). These figures are strikingly lower than international estimates by the United Nations and World Health Organization which estimate that 15 percent of the world’s population lives with a disability. The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claims much higher percentage of the Indian population is affected by psychosocial disabilities with 6-7 percent (74.2 – 86.5 million) affected by “mental disorders” and 1-2 percent (12.4 – 24.7 million) by “serious mental disorders.”

India’s government launched the National Mental Health Programme in 1982 to provide community-based services, but its reach is limited and implementation is seriously flawed in the absence of monitoring mechanisms. The District Mental Health Programme is only present in 123 of India’s 650 districts and faces a number of limitations including lack of accessibility and manpower, integration with primary healthcare services, and lack of standardized training.

In a country where gender-based discrimination is pervasive, women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities in particular face multiple layers of discrimination – on account of their disability and gender – and are thus among the most marginalized and vulnerable to abuse and violence. Often shunned by families unable to take care of them, many end up forcibly institutionalized. The process for institutionalizing women and men in India is the same. But women and girls with disabilities face unique challenges – including sexual violence and denial of access to reproductive health – that men do not.

“Without appropriate community support and a lack of awareness, people with psychosocial disabilities are ridiculed, feared, and stigmatized in India,” Sharma said.

Families, legal guardians, and child welfare committees can admit women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities to institutions without their consent. If found wandering in the streets, they may also be picked up by the police and admitted to these institutions through court orders. If no family member comes to take them home, they can often stay there for decades. None of the women and girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch currently or formerly living in institutions were admitted with their consent. Among the 128 cases of institutional abuse that Human Rights Watch documented, none of the women or girls had successfully been able to access redress mechanisms for being institutionalized against their will or facing abuse within the institution. Most of the women and girls interviewed were not even aware of mechanisms for redress.

“Long-term warehousing of women and girls with disabilities is simply not the answer,” Sharma said. “Even in the most serious cases, there are ways to find out what kind of services they want.”

In some of the facilities visited by Human Rights Watch, overcrowding and lack of hygiene were a serious concern. For instance, as of November 2014, close to 900 people live in Asha Kiran, a government institution for people with intellectual disabilities in Delhi – nearly three times the hospital’s capacity. In Pune Mental Hospital, the superintendent, Dr. Vilas Bhailume, told Human Rights Watch: “We only have 100 toilets for more than 1,850 patients – out of which only 25 are functional; the others keep getting blocked. Open defecation is the norm.”

Human Rights Watch documented cases of 20 women and 11 girls who are currently or were recently given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) without their consent in 4 mental hospitals. Vidya [not her real name], a 45-year-old woman with a psychosocial disability, was institutionalized by her husband and underwent ECT for months. “ECT was like a death tunnel,” she told Human Rights Watch. “I would get a headache for days…. When my medication was reduced, I started asking questions. Til then I was like a vegetable. It was only many months later that I found out that I was being given ECT.”

India ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2007. Under the treaty, governments must respect and protect the right to legal capacity of people with disabilities and their right to live in the community on an equal basis as others. Forced institutionalization is prohibited. However, India’s laws allow courts to appoint guardians to take decisions on behalf of people with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities, without the their free and informed consent, and India perpetuates a healthcare system where people with such disabilities are segregated in institutions instead of having access to support and services in the community.

In an attempt to bring its national legislation in line with the CRPD, in 2013, the government has introduced two bills in parliament, the Mental Health Bill and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill. However, they do not fully guarantee women and girls with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities the right to legal capacity and the right to independent living, as required by the treaty.

The central government in India should immediately order an evaluation and take steps to end abusive practices and inhumane conditions in mental hospitals and state and NGO-run residential care institutions by organizing effective monitoring of such facilities, Human Rights Watch said. India should further undertake without delay a comprehensive legal reform to abolish guardianship and recognize the legal capacity of all persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others, while developing a comprehensive, time-bound plan to develop alternatives to long-term residential-based care. The few local community support and independent living initiatives available in India are run by NGOs, such as Anjali: Mental Health Rights Organization (Kolkata), The Banyan (Chennai), Bapu Trust for Research on Mind and Discourse (Pune) and Iswar Sankalpa (Kolkata).

“India has an opportunity to move away from a system of isolation and abuse and instead build a system of support and independence,” Sharma said. “The lives of millions of women with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities are at stake.”